Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We are joined by the Comptroller and Auditor General, Mr. Seamus McCarthy, as a permanent witness to the committee. He is accompanied by Ms Maureen Mulligan, deputy director of audit. Apologies have been received from Deputy Farrell.

The first item on the agenda is minutes. We are dealing with minutes from a number of previous meetings that have been circulated. I refer to the minutes of the meetings on 11, 18 and 25 October and on 15 and 22 November. There is one slight change of wording to be made to the minutes of the meeting on 8 November, as circulated. I will ask the clerk to the committee to make that one change and re-circulate. I propose we note the minutes. Is that agreed? Agreed. The next item is matters arising from the minutes. If members have matters arising out of the minutes, they might hold them over until next week as they will have an opportunity to go through them.

The next item on the agenda is correspondence. There are three categories of correspondence, the first of which is briefing documents and opening statements for today's meeting. The two items, correspondence Nos. 1771 A and 1772 A, dated 4 November, from the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment, provide briefing material and an opening statement for today's meeting. I propose we note and publish those documents. Is that agreed? Agreed. We also have No. 1777 A, dated 5 November, from the same Department, providing further briefing material for today's meeting. We have been asked not to publish No. 1777 A and I propose we agree to that request, at least for the moment. I propose we note No. 1777 A. It has been circulated to the committee. Inevitably, it will be discussed here today. On the question of publication of that document, it may contain confidential, commercially sensitive information. We can come back to it. For now, I propose we note, but not publish, it.